Poor Daniel Larison. Imagine living in his world, a dark,
forbidding universe where the neocons were never discredited,
where the interventionist consensus is bipartisan and unchallengeable, and only
a pitifully small Remnant
understands that there’s nothing conservative about empire-building. Larison,
a writer for The
American Conservative – that heroic bastion of anti-interventionist,
proto-libertarian sentiment on the right – spends a great deal of energy "proving"
that the very movement his magazine seeks to build does not, in fact, exist.

When Rep. Jason Chaffetz started questioning the Afghanistan war, Larison dourly
remarked on the Utah Republican’s probable support for attacking Iran. Now
that Obama has intervened in Libya, Larison is singing the same
melancholy tune.

"If ever there were a time for populist American nationalists who
can’t stand Obama and claim to venerate and narrowly interpret the Constitution
to protest, this would be it. Of course, this is not what’s happening. Weigel
explains:

"’There are individual Tea Party leaders, like Williams or Rand Paul,
who wince at a military intervention undertaken like this. The Tea Party is
libertarian in plenty of ways. But if it has one defining characteristic, it’s
that it’s nationalist. If there’s a way to remove Gadhafi decades after he aided
the Lockerbie bombers, then that’s more important than a debate over the deep
thoughts of the founders. In a Saturday interview with Fox News, Rep. Allen
West, R-Fla., one of the most popular politicians to win the support of the
Tea Party, explained that his problem with the intervention was about grit,
not the Constitution.’

Continuing his sour-faced griping, Larison concludes:

"… I didn’t expect a great outpouring of antiwar sentiment from Tea
Party-aligned Republicans in Congress, but opposing the Libyan war is a fairly
easy call. It doesn’t require a full embrace of Ron Paul’s foreign policy views.
It just requires some minimal adherence to their professed beliefs. The Libyan
war represents everything Tea Partiers are supposed to dislike about Obama and
Washington, and it should offend their nationalist and constitutionalist sensibilities.
The first real test to see what a "Tea Party foreign policy" might
be is here, and with some honorable exceptions Tea Partiers and the members
of Congress they have supported have proved that they are indistinguishable
from the hawkish interventionists that have dominated the GOP’s foreign policy
thinking for the last decade and more."

With Congress on Spring break, and the war but a few days old, the unfairness
of such a summary judgment was underscored by an "update" published
a few hours after Larison’s original post, noting Sen.
Mike Lee’s criticism of the Libyan adventure as foolhardy and unconstitutional.
Others
soon joined Lee in making equally cogent and principled critiques, yet none
were noted by Larison, perhaps because it undermines his view of the anti-interventionist
right as a remnant of an unrecoverable past rather than the wave of the future.

"Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, does not back President Obama’s plan
for military force in Libya. ‘I’ve got real questions for the president,’ he
said. ‘I just don’t believe that you unilaterally use United States’ forces
the way that we have.’

"Chaffetz knows the Libyan people have suffered at the hands of dictator
Muammar Gadhafi, but the congressman does not believe U.S. forces should take
part in ‘policing’ the globe. ‘No doubt that Gadhafi is one of the world’s bad
guys, but the use of U.S. force raises it to another level,’ he said. He criticized
the president for making his case to the United Nations, rather than to Congress
and the American people.

"After the initial phases of the military action unfold, Chaffetz
says, he and other members of Congress will press the issue. ‘Unless there’s
a clear and present danger to the United States of America, I don’t think you
use U.S. forces in North Africa in what is the equivalent of a civil war,’ he
said."

Larison once scoffed at Chaffetz as someone "who
cannot be taken seriously," and yet how seriously can we take a pundit
who refuses to see the progress his own (alleged) cause is making? The reality
is that the anti-interventionist conservative critique that originated in the
pages of his very own magazine, The American Conservative – as well
as in the campaigns of Rep.
Ron Paul – is echoing in the halls of Congress. See, for instance, this:

"Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
is calling the decision of President Barack Obama to deploy force again Libya
without first seeking congressional authorization ‘an affront to the Constitution.’

"Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, chairs the House Armed Services
subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. In a statement Monday, he said
‘The United States does not have a King’s army.’

"’President Obama’s administration has repeated the mistakes of the
Clinton administration concerning bombing in Kosovo and the George W. Bush administration
concerning invading Iraq by failing to request and obtain from the U.S. Congress
unambiguous prior authorization to use military force against a country that
has not attacked U.S. territory, the U.S. military or U.S. citizens,’ he said.
‘This is particularly ironic considering then-Senator Obama campaigned for the
Democratic nomination based upon his opposition to President George W. Bush’s
decision to invade Iraq.’

"While Muammar Gadhafi ‘is a tyrant despised throughout the Middle
East and North Africa,’ Bartlett said, and ‘his brutal and merciless attacks
against his own citizens are horrific," it is ‘self-evident’ that the situation
in Libya ‘is not an emergency.’

"’The Obama administration sought and obtained support from both the
Arab League and the United Nations Security Council to authorize military force
against Gadhafi,’ Bartlett said. ‘The Obama administration also had time to
organize a 22-nation coalition to implement a no-fly zone with military attacks
led by U.S. Armed Forces against Gadhafi’s forces.

"’Nonetheless, the Obama administration failed to seek approval from
the American people and their elected legislators in the Congress. Failing to
obtain authorization from the U.S. Congress means that President Obama has taken
sole responsibility for the outcome of using U.S. military forces against Gadhafi
onto his shoulders and his administration.’"

Rep. Tim Johnson, Illinois Republican, and a tea party favorite, has
this to say:

"Constitutionally, it is indisputable that Congress must be consulted
prior to an act of war unless there is an imminent threat against this country.
The president has not done so. In fact, this is the same man who questioned
President Bush’s constitutional authority to commit troops to war.

"Our country has no business enmeshing itself in another country’s
civil unrest. We were not attacked. Our national security interests are not
at stake. It is the American people, through their elected representatives,
who are constitutionally empowered to take this kind of action. Not the president.

"We have spent $443.5 billion in the war in Afghanistan since 2001.
We have spent $805.6 billion in Iraq in that time. We are already beyond broke
for largely unacceptable reasons, and the president has just added to that dubious
legacy, committing American lives and dollars without our consent and no end
game in sight.

"The first night of this attack, we fired 112 Tomahawk missiles. Each
of these missiles can cost up to $1.5 million. That’s $168 million for one night’s
assault. Estimates to maintain the no-fly zone, depending on how much of the
country we want to dominate, can cost $30 million to $100 million per week.
Our commitment to that goal is to date open-ended."

The conservatives who are speaking out against the Libyan action are not just
angry because the administration went to the UN
Security Council instead of the US Congress to seek authorization, they
are also attacking the underlying policy, the dangerous "responsibility
to protect" doctrine. This is explicitly rejected by Barlett and other
conservatives, who note Libya "has not attacked US territory, the US military,
or US citizens."

If this is now the standard, then the War Party has lost the tea partiers,
a group that includes Bartlett, Lee, Chaffetz, and Justin
Amash – who is introducing
legislation to defund the Libyan war. In the absence of a similar protest
on the left, these tea partiers are the most vocal and visible opponents of
the Libyan war. Together with Ron
and Rand
Paul, they are leading a new generation of conservative Republicans to do battle
with the interventionist consensus that dominates Washington.

A couple of weeks ago, Glenn
Greenwald – another writer, like Larison, with whom I share certain ideological
sympathies – wrote
a piece on the Tea Party and US foreign policy that was somewhat sympathetic
to the idea that their less government philosophy leads logically to support
for civil liberties on the home front and anti-interventionism in the foreign
policy realm. Yet there was, to be sure, a certain condescending air that permeated
Glenn’s piece, and in the course of it he remarked that the libertarians and
paleoconservatives constitute small factions "without much political influence."
Today, as the main voices of protest against an unconstitutional and potentially
very dangerous war come from these very elements, while the Democratic "left"
(pathetically represented by the likes of Nancy
Pelosi) mindlessly cheerleads this latest empire-building excursion, there
are ample grounds to challenge Greenwald’s appraisal – and Larison’s.

Indeed, the freshmen tea partiers and Ron Paul supporters aren’t the only ones
questioning the Libya "rescue" operation. Haley
Barbour, a pillar of the Republican establishment of some considerable
girth and weight, is not only asking
"What are we doing in Libya?" but is also questioning our ten-year
Afghan crusade, and wondering aloud why we can’t cut our bloated military budget.
Indeed, Tim Pawlenty, the neocons’
favorite GOP presidential candidate (to date), was quick to attack
Barbour for entertaining such heresy.

The "isolationist" (i.e. pro-peace, anti-internationalist) sentiment
represented – albeit unevenly, and inconsistently — by the populist tea party
movement is trickling up to the higher tiers of the Republican party leadership,
so that even House Speaker John
Boehner felt compelled to issue a statement questioning the process if not
the policy that led to US involvement in Libya’s civil war.

This "trickle up" process is working slowly, but surely. As the Obama
administration embarks on a course determined in advance by its ideological
premises — a crass self-declared "pragmatism" which amounts to supporting
the status quo unless and until it becomes untenable, and then pursuing whatever
policy will satisfy the dominant factions within his own administration – Republican
opposition is crystallizing. That many Republicans are reacting to this in a
purely partisan manner is irrelevant: some opposition to Obama’s Libyan adventure
may start out as a partisan ploy, but political necessity is quick to harden
into ideological conviction.

Ever since the Kosovo war – indeed, since this web site’s very inception –
Antiwar.com has been plugging away at the conservative pro-war consensus as
an ideological distortion, and pointing to an alternative
view which holds that limited government has to mean limited involvement
in the affairs of other nations. You
can’t have a Republic and have an Empire at the same time. You can’t hope
to cut back the power of government if that government must have the funding
and the executive flexibility to send US troops anywhere in the world without
a by your leave either to Congress or to the long-oppressed taxpayers who are
footing the bill.

That message is finally beginning to sink in. No, we aren’t taking exclusive
credit for this sudden awakening: it’s the result of years of work by many people
on many different levels, but Antiwar.com has, indeed, been a major factor in
this remarkable shift, and I don’t mind saying so.

Let David Weigel, the turncoat former Kochtopus employee who
smeared Ron Paul as a "racist," cite the irrelevant Alan West
all he wants: he and his newfound "progressive" buddies have an interest
in denying the reality of a new movement on the right that opposes foreign meddling
by the US government as well as Washington’s meddling with our healthcare. Having
defected
from Team Red to Team Blue, Weigel makes a living off the discredited and archaic
"left-right" paradigm, which insists that everyone on the right is
a Neanderthalish rube just itching to get him some Muslim scalps: citing him
hardly helps Larison’s case.

The constitutionalist-libertarian movement initially energized by Ron Paul’s
heroic efforts has grown well beyond the organizational confines of Paul’s Campaign
for Liberty and its growing and very active youth section, Young
Americans for Liberty. A broad, grassroots movement has arisen that not
only embraces the economics of freedom long championed by Rep. Paul, but also
insists on the Paulian
insight that our foreign policy of global intervention is an obstacle placed
in the path of taking back our old Republic. Their horror at the presidential
supremacism exhibited by President Obama as he goes to war without a vote in
Congress is rooted in a principled opposition to Big Government per se, and
in a recognition that imperialism is inherently hostile to their vision of a
free America.

Larison writes that he’s "still waiting for that new antiwar right."
Well, Dan, the waiting is over. So relax, sit back, and enjoy
it.

This is one great piece Justin: The only hope for this country is a return to a limited constitutional government. The only ones calling for that are on the right. The modern Presidency is way beyond what the Founders envisioned. Obama should be impeached fro his failure to follow the Constitution, for not calling for a declaration of war. Then there could at least have been a debate. We didn't get involved in Rhwanda, Burundi, Biafra, Cambodia, Tibet, Cuba, Mexico in the 30's, Spain in the 30's, etc. We can't fight in every civil war around the world. We are fighting an undeclared war in Pakistan as well. Thats not counting Iraq and Afganistan. Where the hell will this end?

freshnotbitter

We need to stop comparing the serial "awakenings" in Arab countries with every other instance of foreign catastrophe and start dealing with them as something new.

emsnews

The list of civilizations with small governments is very short. Vanishingly short. The US is by definition, since 1812, an empire (ask the Indians about this matter, or the Mexicans). The idea of a 'small government' for right wingers translates into 'no social services for the people so they suffer and die.' Which isn't very civilized. Even the Romans figured out you need bread as well as the circuses and hot baths.

The barbarians even had social services via the Church until the Church grew predatory and began to oppress the poor.

Mr. Raven

I support libertarian small l socialism which is the least amount of governance neccesary to check the sociopathic tendencies of those who lust after greed and power. I believe a minarchist socially just society is possible in the long term organized around privately held cooperatives operating by the Rochadale principles selling products and services in a market. Thus I reject both state centralization and corporate capitalism and empire. I believe you have posited a false dilemma EMS News by saying we either get a Leviathan State or unchecked corporatism.

skulz fontaine

Well said Mr. Raimondo. Mercy, just once it would be ever so refreshing IF America could mind it's own business and tend to OUR affairs. You know, like deficits and taxes and military spending and…
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath for any of that to happen.

freshnotbitter

"Even an insect wants to live". (Chekhov, Rothschild's Fiddle)

Do you think a trillion dollar arms industry is going to go away quietly ?

Perhaps pragmatarian philosophy are blinding Americans? That the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And the proof of the validity of empire is in the foreign "victories". And since that is obviously wrong (to label them victories of reality) , then the proof of the politics is in screwing the minds of the population succesfully!

The demise of the USSR put America to a big choice: retreat and enjoy the wealth of a peaceful world – but then risking the success of that one would crush also the home empire, and that special midset of Americans from 1776: Since we beated the worlds largest military power, that was proof of a superior value of Americans to everyone everywhere. Because it showed afterwards, that everywhere in America, and then also South America, you were making the final decisions. Then the Philipines, where spin and dishonest policies to screw the population were developed to some perverse perfection, and brought back to nip every democratic movements in the bud (outside establishment thinking).

So you NEED to be leaders. To prove that you are better. Which by pragmatically magic of philosophy proves you also has every right to be the leaders. That it boils down to "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT" when you remove the intricate spins from reality, only magnifies the vlue and importance of spin. To the sick mindset.

More balanced people would see that as a sociopathic kind of disease. Which hopefully will become studied AND PREVENTED FROM EXISTING in a future world, by more sane humans. If they get a chance to prevail eventually. I am hopeful, since the diseased party probably ends up killing themselves.

Raashid

I think Larison has a fair point though. I mean, the Paul's aside, how many of those opposed to intervening against Libya would still happily keep spending vast amounts in arming Israel, or attacking a country like Iran when The Lobby ramps up Iran's threat level to Israel? As some astute posters here have pointed out, many s-called anti-interventionists are only anti in so far as they want to save some money for the right war (which are ones that benefit Israel).

GradyWilson

Raimondo of course tends to get a bit emotional and hyperbolic without good reason. Republican support of the US capitalist military empire is not a temporary phenomonen (it is systemic) and is not in peril. Of course some on the right would like to beat up Obama and maybe even impeach him (like Kucinich spoke of) and more power to them but lets not pretend this is nothing more than petulant partisan politics rather than a wholesale withdrawl of support of the empire. Remember all the polls show that Raimondo's Tea Partiers are overall MORE supportive of US warmongering and intervention than the general population. Don't be deceived by the quotes of a few. Take a few breaths Justin and relax. You're overdoing it again without justification. Greenwald is correct – using history as a guide a healty cynicism is warranted towards the sincerety of the Tea Partiers non-interventionism. After all they are f'ing Republicans.

Mr. Raven

Neither party is trustworthy Grady Dims are fair weather anti war when a Repigliecon is in power, and Repigliecons anti-war when a Dimocrap is in power. State centralist socialism scarcely has a better record in war mongering. Only localism and anarcho-sydalcalism, cooperatism IWW style Unionism will get us out of this trap IMO.

Andrewp111

All the discussion here will be moot once Gaddafi does attact US territory or citizens. And you can bet your bottom dollar that he will. He has a history of launching terrorist attacks and assassinations at his enemies. Once Libya has been more or less partitioned into 2 countries and Gaddafi is no longer ducking bombs, Gaddafi's terrorists will do something spectacular. Count on it.

MvGuy

What a festering crock of bull pukey!! So it's Gaddafi who is the terrorist…not the evil empire that kills a MILLION Iraqi citizens based on Neocon lies and FORGERIES…!! Lockerbie…Lockerbie………?
Yaa and it was Saddam what sent the Anthrax, thank you…. Fool Gaddafi thought things would be honest in Scotland…. What a moron…..Nothing, anywhere is honest…. Just like Saddam thought if he got rid of his weapons the Empire would lift the sanctions… Instead they take advantage of his weakness and attack…. Ditto Gaddafi…!! Obama is the terrorist..!! Wake up Andrewp111…WTF!!!

liberranter

Your meds are over there on the nightstand. Please take them, at once.

RickR30

"The United States does not have a King’s army." But the US army has a mulatto puppet king. Our immediate participation in the war against Libya wasn't conceived by the Obamination of Desolation, not by the Three Witches. It was conceived by MIC-Pentagon, LLC. and "our" elected officials have to obey.

liberranter

Exactly!

Benjcomin Bozart

Boy George ran as an anti-war, we aren't the worlds police to the approval of the Republicans and once in power started plans to invade Iraq. Republicans were all about we gotta fight them there and Democracy is on the march. If they retake the White House it will be back to all war and bigger War Department budgets. Like the Tea Party are for Liberty and the Constitution until elected then vote for the Patriot Act.

GradyWilson

"Boy George ran as an anti-war, we aren't the worlds police to the approval of the Republicans" – BB

That's right on Ben. If I've learned one thing from Raimondo it is that the US imperialistic foreign policy has broad and deep bi-partisan suppport. Sometimes he obviously forgets this fact himself. I wonder if this is him being naively overly optimistic or if he is simply supportive of the fascistic domestic policies which the right is advancing while being sinisterly indifferent to their warmongering? Considering he's a very intelligent person I conclude the latter.

Jebe

The one thing we can surely count on Andrewp111 is that if the international criminals whom are now using their armed forces to destroy Libya do not manage to kill Gaddafi they will resort to goading him to do something so they can really use that as an excuse to kill him for once and all.
BTW is the p111 moniker a subtle hint of black humor to the F111's which were used to bomb him back in 1986?

Marianne

Ok, but I think Larison has a point though. Look, if Bush were still in the White House, these Republicans would probably be supporting an attack on Libya.

There is no groundswell of criticism of Obama on the Libyan issue by the Tea Party. That is not what the Tea Party is about, in my opinion. I think it is social spending and social issues like illegal immigration that are its main concerns. The number of Republicans who are speaking out against the US Empire is still rather small though one must admit that it is growing.

freshnotbitter

I am not so sure repubs would be supporting an attack on Libya. Republicans like the dictatorships in arabia which they call democracy or tyranny depending on whether or not they support or oppose America. Republicans are happy to call Kuwait our "democratic ally" in the war against terrorism when they are an autocracy whereas the Iranian regime, which has wide popular support (and opposition) is called tyrannical.

Of course, they would say this hypocrisy is explained by the fact that they see things according to American "interests" and that actually sells quite well with the party faithful in red states. Abraod it does not sell all that well but the "opposition" it creates can be held up as a threat that requires American military interventiond or surveillance and, certainly, taxpayer support.

emsnews

100% chance: this is pure partisan politics. When the GOP runs the White House, they always demand we unite behind a president at war. When it is the reverse, they demand we impeach the President.

kev

i really wish i could share justin's optimism, but we all know that if palin or any other repub is elected in 2012, 99.9% of these people would go right back to cheering wars that congress didnt authorize.

Bodkin

The war in Libya isn't the work of a sinister pro-Israel lobby (after all, Israel would prefer Gadhafi to an Islamist takeover). Neither is it really about the "responsibility to protect". It's about oil.

Western economies are highly vulnerable to the price of oil. Rising oil prices will prevent economic recovery, especially in Europe where it's needed desperately.

For a war-weary public to support an attack on Libya, it had to be sold as an urgent attempt to avert a genocide. The European elites who absolutely needed to attack Libya to secure their own economic stability required American muscle, so when it became possible to exaggerate Gadhafi's impending "genocide" and use it as a pretext for launching an attack, Obama did so using his own waiting-in-the-wings interventionist ideology called "Responsibility to Protect".

Nevertheless, this war is being driven primarily by French and British economic interests, not American humanitarian concerns.

Otherwise, why would America further deplete her treasury on a Libyan intervention, while ignoring large-scale atrocities elsewhere?

Sam

This time i must agree with you.

Sam

But Israel must behave.

freshnotbitter

Justin speaks of interventionism in absolute terms. He is absolutely against interventionism. Personally I believe that we cannot cause revolutions to happen – as the neocon/bushies thought they could in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, but we can certainly urge them along when they appear from indogenous sources, such as progress in technology that brings awareness of power to do something about long festering discontent with the old order (Tunisia, Egypt).

Unfortunately, a bureaucracy is an organism like any other that would not exist but for its instinct to live, to survive, to preserve itself. Thus, NATO, a conglomeration of 20 something nations marching before the Christian cross (plus Turkey), which maintains the occupation of Jerusalem and sends armored warrior with weapons to invade Arabia, now finds itself as the "indispensable" force that will soothe all hurt, solve all problems, bring calm to a terrifying situation.

It doesn't matter that NATO's presence will immediately cause "opposition" to form. Because that will be just fine. It is the trillions of dollars bureaucray's survival that is at issue. More later, space run out.

emsnews

When the Kosovo bombing began, I joked that all the Republicans would become instant anti-war hippies…and they did! Imagine that! The instant Bush walked into the White House, they reverted to warmongering idiots. Now, they are flashing the peace sign and singing 'Let's give peace a chance' again. HAHAHA.

freshnotbitter

You have huge petro interests in Saudi Arabia/Gulf States who eye this whole Libya affair with suspicion. If USA takes out Qaddafi, why not the Gulf Sheikdoms?

Of course, they will never make their position public. They have paid congressmen to do that for them in the guise of "non-interventionism", "American interests", etc.

Thus, we have money for 10 years of NATO war in Afghanistan and Cheney/Haliburton's war for oil in Iraq but not a dime remains for a 4 day war to take out Qaddafi.

One of these days we will drop i-phones from helicopters all over Arabia and call it the CocaCola war. That one will win for sure. " I'd love to buy the world a coke….."

fedupandsick

If only obomba had gone to congress for "authorization" no one would be talking impeahment because the answer would have been a big fat YES.

Ball

Unfortunately, the parties simply reflect the blood-thirsty masses. I don't know how else you can explain the re-election of Bush.

(not that Kerry would have been better, but you have to at least kick the bum out)

I keep reading about the silent majority. I think it's a crock. When we became an empire, we became imperialists.

jackbootstate

The U.S wasn't attacked by the Philippines, or Vietnam either. Making war has been the bread and butter of this country from its inception. The enterprise is just much bigger than it was in the beginning. So in a way, the people arguing for intervention are "conservatives" of a tradition that goes back to the founding of this imperialist nation we live in.

Unfortunately, the most strident criticism of a particular president's war policies usually has partisan motives. Back during Clinton time the best criticisms of his war policies came the Republican right. Of course, these days the antiwar left has largely been dormant as Obama has expanded the occupation of Afghanistan and started up a new war against Libya.

Redneck Woman

Look here you anti war folks. Stop spewing blame. You have a golden oportunity to unite all walks of life in America against this war. The average guy on the street is against this war. Wake up and smell the the coffee.
It's not about who discovererd that "this is a bad idea" first. It is about mobilizing what you got! You got people who here-to fore looked the other way about Iraq and Afganistan. At first they supported these wars and then they just prayed they would be resolved. But now another war? For what? You have got a population out there ready to be united against one thing. NO MORE WARS! Do you get it?
Go with it!
I'm a redneck woman, just seething mad at our government. Now where do I sign up? Shut up about the partisan motives. Believe me…use this. Tell me where the nearest march is and I'll be out there on the street with an anti-war sign!
Silent before but no longer.

jackbootstate

We had about 50,000 show up for our march here in Seattle on February 15, 2003. I would be surprised if we could get 1/10th that crowd size to show for an anti-war rally these days, and it's not hard to figure out why. Most of the people who showed up for that demo 8 years ago were doing it to protest Bush more than they were protesting the invasion of Iraq. Most of them would have been nowhere to be found if Gore had been the one in charge ordering the invasion.

emsnews

The question is, where on earth are the right wing anti-war demonstrations? All I see is demonstrations for no taxes! Watching libertarians blame us lefties who have gone against both Democratic and Republican presidents in the past is kind of bizarre. It is as if we are your servants and are slacking off. While you guys do what?

Bitch and moan.

RED DAVE

Precisely. There was actually a Tea-Bagger rally in Madison against the demands of the union workers. Does Justin really believe that some kind of unity can be built with these types?

RED DAVE

GradyWilson, above is right! If Justin didn't have such a jones for the Right, he would realize that what he's dealing with is a small faction of a virulently pro-war, pro-capitalist, racist, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-labor political party that is grumbling a bit. When the defecation hits the propellor, these swine will root in the sty with the others.

Yes, Justin, there's always been an anti-war Right. Okay. And you have, in your studies of history, completely exaggerated them. There has, however, also been a Right, their brothers and sisters in the same party, that gets a chubby over every war they can get their bloody hands on and destroys freedom around the world (except the freedom to exploit labor and buy cheap and sell dear).

You completely ignored the beginnings of a grass-roots anti-war movement in Wisconsin because it's based on labor and hated by the tea baggers you love (and lie about). You're fantasizing (and lying) about a right-wing antiwar movement. Earth to Justin: a few bilious Congresspeople do not an antiwar movement make.

RED DAVE

Here's a reality check: Justin says, "Senators Lee and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) have both come out against the Libyan intervention, and so has Rep. Chaffetz … ."

However, the truth is that Rand Paul is engaged in waffling that would make John Kerry proud. Here's a National Review article: "Looking ahead, Paul is confident that GOP lawmakers, and members of the Tea Party, will push for more congressional oversight and press Obama on his handling of the conflict. “Even on the Republican side, there are people who are saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, wasn’t Congress supposed to have something to do with declaring war?’” he says.

Does this sound like opposition the intervention or bellyaching because they weren't consulted.

Pistol Pete

I have to agree with those who believe Justin is being overly optimistic about the "anti-war Right." Most of the GOP critters complaining about Libya are doing so for purely political reasons. Does anyone seriously believe that if Obama had gone to Congress for authorization to strike Libya he wouldn't have gotten it? Yeah, me either. That's why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Obama bypassing Congress is much ado about nothing.

Creeps like Chaffetz aren't anti-interventionists. They enjoy war as much as the next sociopath. Their opposition to intervention in Libya is motivated by the notion that we can't afford another war or that the president didn't get Congressional authorization first or both. This has nothing to do with principled anti-interventionism.

Joseph Zrnchik

When Iraq illegally invaded Iran and killed 700,000 not only did the US not care, but it provided lethal aid to Saddam in the form of chemical weapons.

Now Gadaffi kills a few thousand rebels and the US and NATO claim Libya must be invaded and Gaddafi stopped. This is the type of hypocrisy and lawlessness the American people are subject to each day by our elites.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].